


Out of Time

by Cathaleena



Category: Peaky Blinders (TV), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-08
Updated: 2020-06-27
Packaged: 2021-03-01 00:33:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,985
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23066281
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cathaleena/pseuds/Cathaleena
Summary: Steve Rogers was known as the man out of time, but on a mission gone wrong, Morgan Stark and Nathaniel "Pietro" Barton found themselves back in 1919, and no conceivable way of getting back home. Eventual Tommy Shelby/Morgan Stark. Will eventually contain explicit scenes.
Relationships: Tommy Shelby/Morgan Stark
Comments: 12
Kudos: 53





	1. Chapter 1

_Morgan Stark_

Her head was pounding.

It was the first thing that she was actually aware of, trying to regain her orientation and figure out what was going on. The next thing was that it felt like she was lying on the ground.

“Morgan… Morgan are you alright?” it was undoubtedly Piet asking that, she could tell by the way that he was speaking that he was freaking out.

“I’m fine,” she slurred, cringing at the sound of her own voice. She definitely didn’t sound fine. But then again, she didn’t exactly feel that great either. With Piet’s encouragement she tried to push herself up and force her eyes open. The sudden light only made her wince again, and she let her body collapse back down as she tried to get her bearings. Pietro’s hand was running over her back in soothing circles and she wondered how he was functioning. As her vision started clearing she managed to finally sit herself up, still uncomfortable with how the world was spinning around her. “What happened?”

“An explosion. As far as I’m concerned, we should both be dead, but wherever we are it is not where the explosion happened,” he explained with a small shrug, the blue eyes he inherited from his father darting around. Morgan had known him long enough to know that he was anxious.

They needed to get moving. She forced herself up on her feet, allowing Piet to guide her with a hand on the small of her back. The dizziness wasn’t going down and she was grateful that he was there, at least if she fell or passed out again there might be a chance he’d be able to catch her. He stopped her at the end of the road, peeking out to what appeared to be a main road. Morgan was almost surprised at how empty it was. What was more surprising was the sheer number of vintage cars on the road.

“I think I might have a concussion,” the brunette said, eyes wondering back down to the other side of vintage cars. “I’m pretty sure I’m seeing things. Unless of course there’s a vintage car fair we didn’t hear about.”

“It isn’t just that,” he said, picking a discarded newspaper off of the ground. Morgan Stark couldn’t even remember the last time that she had seen a printed newspaper. It must have been sometime in the mid-2030s. Pietro shoved the paper in her hands, pointing to the date printed at the top.




* * *

_A Few Days Later_

The positives of an explosion that resulted in a time travel accident was at least they had arrived in a time that was shortly after the end of World War 1. The negatives included the perception that people had of women in this time. The one thing Morgan Stark had a brilliant mind for was technology, but in this world, men seemed to think that she was not capable of doing… anything really. She had been reduced into nothing more than a pretty face instantaneously.

Pietro had a bit more luck. Deciding that his second name probably sounded too communist for the era that they found themselves in, they had taken to calling him Nathaniel, or Nate again. Morgan felt more like they were going deep undercover when she started trying to get herself used to calling her lifelong friend by his first name. Shortly after they had made that decision, and due to the complete lack of any valid ID or immigration documents, Nate had fallen into work as hired muscle for a gang. Morgan had barked out a laugh when he told her they proudly called themselves the ‘Peaky Blinders’, but at least the clothes that he was wearing looked good and she had to admit that the hats were a decent weapon on top of looking smart.

In the meantime, Morgan, who out of pure stubbornness refused to give up her name to go by something more age appropriate, had managed to shoplift herself a fairly decent wardrobe and had even learnt how to manage her hair into an age appropriate style.

With their cover story that they were cousins who had relocated to England after the war they had managed to find themselves a terrible, but cheap, apartment in Birmingham from a dubious landlord. Morgan somehow managed to keep a tight leash on her temper, giving a naïve and soft smile every time she caught his eyes looking her over. Usually she did it by imagining how satisfying it would be to break his nose. And how he likely wouldn’t expect her to even be able to do that.

She still needed to find work for herself though. Which is how, dressed in the finest clothes she had stolen for herself, she found herself walking into a bar head held high at 10am. A man was there, alone, sweeping the floors from what seemed to be broken glass. He didn’t seem to have heard her enter, so she cleared her throat to catch his attention.

“We’re closed at the moment,” he told her without looking up, continuing on with his work.

“I’m not here for a drink, I’m here for the barmaid job,” Morgan countered, watching as his head immediately shot up to her. He looked her over, cigarette hanging out of his mouth.

“Are you mad?” he asked, taking another drag off his cigarette.

“No.”

“Do you know about this place?” he asked incredulously.

“It was in an advertisement,” she responded, feeling her own frustration growing. Here he was advertising for a barmaid and this man thought that she wouldn’t even be capable of that? She wished that she could show him exactly what she could do.

“Jobs been filled,” he retorted, going back to his sweeping.

“A job from today’s paper has already been filled?”

“Believe me, love, I’m doing you a favour,” he still wasn’t looking at her.

“I thought I was asking you to employ me, not do me a favour,” she retorted, forcing herself to maintain a rigid posture and look at him with a straight face. He finally started pulling himself up to take another look at her. Maybe she was getting somewhere with him, she thought to herself.

That was until he spoke again. “Your too nice.”

“Too nice?”

“And too pretty,” he continued, eyes still gazing over her. “They’d have you up against a wall.”

“I can handle myself,” she countered, eyes narrowing in a challenge at him. “I have experience, let me work the day without pay and if you’re not happy with how I do then you can let me go tonight after my shift is over. You won’t lose anything.”

He’d sighed, running a hand through his hair. She could tell he was thinking it over. Based off the state that the place was in, she was assuming from last night, it also looked like he did need that help sooner rather than later. “Fine, I’m Harry Fenton,” he had reached a hand out for her to shake and she walked forward, making sure to look him in the eyes and give him a firm handshake, a smile crossing her face for the first time since she and Nate had landed themselves in 1919.

“Morgan Stark,” she returned.

“Well Morgan, you can leave your bag and hat on the shelf behind the counter so no one tries to take them. Then you can help me get this place into the right state to open our doors.”

“No problem.”

* * *

It was about midday and a decent amount of people were already inside The Garrison. Harry had been pointing out men that were regulars and giving Morgan their names. That was when a man walked in dressed in a suit, the same kind of cap that Nate had been wearing, which was Morgan’s first tip off that this man was one of the Peaky Blinders.

From a completely objective standpoint, she found his pale blue eyes absolutely stunning, even if they did seem cold. She gave him a wide, welcoming smile as he slowly walked towards the bar, but Harry had quickly pulled her aside.

“That’s Tommy Shelby, Morgan,” he whispered into her ear, as if that was supposed to mean something to her. The confusion must’ve been evident on his face because he quickly glanced back to see where the man was, and lowered his voice as he continued. “He’s the leader of the Peaky Blinders, bad news. You stay as far away from him as you can, you understand me? And don’t you do anything that might catch his attention. You’re too good of a girl to get mixed up with him. Now go clear the floor and ask if anyone wants refills, I’ll stay here.”

Harry still clearly seemed to think she couldn’t handle herself, but the brunette was in fact touched by his concern and nodded at what he had said. She still needed this job and there was no need to go out of her way while she was doing this probationary period, so she quickly walked around the bar to go and do exactly what she was told. Morgan also didn’t miss how Harry was nervously looking at this Tommy as another man approached him.

The slamming of the doors and sudden shouts interrupted Morgan’s round of checking on the patrons. As her blue eyes flitted up to the man who had made the dramatic appearance, Morgan was pretty sure she could understand exactly what was going on with him. Post-traumatic stress disorder. Though, she was pretty sure it was still called shellshock in this time. And in this time, there was also no real acknowledgement or treatment for it as far as she knew. After all, it was still an issue in the 2030’s.

She’d acted before she’d even heard the glass smash putting herself in front of the unknown man. He’d instantly moved to take a swing at her, causing her to instinctively duck under the throw and use his own momentum to throw him over her shoulder into an empty area by the entrance before he could do any more damage. With him still down she planted one knee on his chest and an arm dug into his throat to pin him down, even as he struggled against her.

“It’s alright, you’re safe. This is the Garrison, you’re in Birmingham, no one is going to hurt you,” Morgan found the words falling out of her mouth, similarly to how she might have handled one of her teammates if they were out on mission and had woken from a nightmare. The words continued falling out of her mouth on repeat until the man under her stopped struggling against her, and in turn she stopped pressing him down as much as his body started shaking with sobs. Moving off him he had sat up, clinging to her like a child as he sobbed and continued offering soft reassurances to him. She couldn’t help but let her eyes wander over to the bar where she now found Harry looking at her in surprise and concern. At least he should now realise that she could in fact handle herself. But she understood the look of concern when her eyes found those of Tommy Shelby’s stuck to her figure, looking her over appraisingly.

A shiver ran down her spine.

Normally Morgan Stark prided her ability to read people. It was a necessary skill of have developed as a multi-billionaire, head of a tech company and spy. But Tommy Shelby was unreadable.

Trying to avoid thinking about that she focussed her attention back on the man who was sobbing in her arms. “Why don’t we sit down and I’ll get you a glass of water, is that ok…?” she drifted off questioningly, realising that she didn’t know the man’s name.


	2. Chapter 2

_Tommy Shelby_

A few hours later, when he arrived at the betting shop for the family meeting that Arthur had called, Tommy still found himself thinking of the new barmaid at The Garrison. He had convinced himself that she was new, because he would’ve noticed her looks before. Tommy might not have been as impulsive about fucking women as Arthur or John, but he still noticed and appreciated a beautiful woman when he saw one.

From the interaction that she’d had with Danny he could only assume that she was a nurse during the war or was close to men that had fought. She’d seen the signs the moment Danny had entered the door, and had not only reacted quicker than anyone else but had also taken him down by herself faster than Tommy would have been able to do. She had probably been a suffragette, he thought to himself taking another drag from his cigarette, they tended to have martial arts training to defend themselves from the beatings of the coppers when they were arrested.

He had more pressing matters than a barmaid though. Like the guns that he had currently hidden. The copper that was being discussed in the family meeting he was currently in. None of them could know the truth, and he needed a plan to get rid of those things before the truth came to light.

The truth did always come to light.

* * *

Tommy found himself in The Garrison again the following night, his eyes caught on the new barmaid as she moved. He noted that Harry had once again given him his drink on the house, and saw the way that she easily moved around Harry to deal with the customers he neglected to tend to Tommy personally. Harry’d probably warned the girl about him, he found himself thinking. He always did warn his employees to stay out of the way of any of the Peaky Blinders, even if he was paying them for protection.

He pulled his eyes away from the barmaid to let them scan across the room, before falling onto John, who was drinking across from him. Arthur was there too, despite the beat down he’d gotten earlier in the day.

It was a nightly routine ever since they had gotten back from France. Head out, get drunk. Go home, take drugs, try to sleep through the nightmares of France that now haunted every dream. It was the nightly routine of most of the men that had come back. They all knew that they had come back different. But they had come back and all of a sudden, things were expected to go back to normal. None of them would ever go back to how they were.

“Anything else boys?” the American accent had caught his attention. It seemed so out of place to him here in The Garrison. Looking over he saw the brunette barmaid now stood only a table over, having brought drinks over to the men sitting there.

“A bit of company, love?” one of the men suggested, eyes clearly wandering over her figure. Tommy watched as she managed a tight smile, but even from a distance he could see the way her body tensed, and the cold glare fixed at the man who had spoken. The man in question was too drunk to notice, or maybe he was just too drunk to care. She turned without another word, before the man grabbed her by the arm. “Come on, love. I’ll treat you real good.”

The entire group had erupted in laughter, though the majority of the people in The Garrison hadn’t even taken note of the situation. Or if they had, they were ignoring it. Out of the corner of Tommy’s eye, he noted Harry taking in the situation, and it looked like he was going to make a move to intervene for the sake of the new barmaid. It was odd, the way that he was almost hovering in keeping an eye out for the brunette. Especially considering Harry usually left them to deal with difficult customers themselves.

“Let go of me,” the brunette had said it was a very even tone, blue eyes narrowed at the man in front of her. It just made the man chuckle, drunkenly getting to his feet to tower over the woman in front of him. “Last warning, let go.”

Tommy watched as she had twisted, before he’d even realised what had happened the man towering over the barmaid was doubled over. She’d cemented the point by wrapping her hands around the back of his neck and bringing his face down against her knee, after which he stumbled, before finally falling and landing with his knees on the ground. It was at that point that the bar had gone quiet, eyes glued to the scene that was created. Tommy watched as Harry pulled himself back to polish glasses, looking surprisingly proud despite the fact that the woman had hit a customer.

“Don’t grab women,” she practically snarled at the man on the ground before pulling herself back up to stand straight. Definitely a suffragette, Tommy thought to himself, between the practiced move to defend herself and the way she had responded. Brushing a lose strand of hair back she plastered a large smile on her face that seemed genuine, but he doubted could be based on the events of the past seconds, looking around at the other customers. “Anyone else want a refill?”

That was enough to get everyone minding their own business again. The sound within the pub picking up to where it had been before the altercation.

“I’ll kill you, you bitch,” the man on the ground had ground out just as the barmaid had turned to head back to the bar, just loud enough for Tommy and his brothers to still hear him over the noise of the bar and his hand covering his face. It was covered in blood, and Tommy had no doubt that the brunette had broken his nose with the knee to the face. Clearly it was also still loud enough for the barmaid to hear, as she turned, cocking her head to the side with a raised eyebrow.

“You couldn’t kill me if you tried,” she answered calmly, before turning head on heel. Tommy took another swig of his whisky as he watched her walk, hearing one of his brother’s let out a long, low whistle.

“That is some woman,” John said. Tommy nodded slightly at his words, she was some woman. He found himself getting up rather abruptly, following her back to the bar, eyes fixed on her.

“You alright?” he heard Harry asking her softly, keeping a respectable distance between the two of them.

“I’m fine, told you I can handle myself Harry,” she responded with a smile, turning to the counter where Tommy was now standing.

“Another bottle, Mr Shelby?” Harry offered amicably, placing his frame between Tommy and the brunette. Given his size he effectively managed to hide her from him. Tommy only nodded, noticing Harry’s. momentary hesitation before the man in question reluctantly strode over to grab his bottle for him as the barmaid stepped forward.

“Another whiskey?” she asked another customer, quickly filling another glass and exchanging money. She kept glancing back at him, and Tommy knew that she could feel his eyes still on her.

“That was impressive,” he commented to the barmaid, who turned to look at him with a raised brow.

“I thought men didn’t like it when a woman knew how to take care of herself,” she commented, though the corners of her lips quirked up slightly and he could see the amusement swirling in her eyes.

“Depends on the man,” he offered, causing the woman in question to let out a chuckle, before pulling out a cigarette and lighting it as he spoke to her. Harry had returned, offering him the bottle, but he walked away hesitantly as he noticed Tommy’s eyes fixed on his employee, though not without shooting her another concerned look. She’d almost gone to leave him to deal with another customer. “Leave him, Harry’ll take care of ‘em.”

“I know you’re used to getting special treatment Mr Shelby, but he’s paying me to do a job and I intend to do that job,” she answered coolly, but a soft smile was still on her face. “I am more than happy to talk while I work though.”

He’d watched as she flitted off, back to him only moments later with a fresh glass placed in front of him after serving the other customers. He’d grabbed the bottle, pouring himself another drink the second it was placed in front of him.

He sat at that bar for a lot longer than he originally intended to that night.


	3. Chapter 3

_Morgan Stark_

Washing her hands, she looked around the kitchen of the dingy apartment she and Nate were living in. It was one bedroom, but they’d put a single bed in what probably should have been the living room. Not that it mattered what the room was meant to be. It was the one benefit of not having an open plan house.

The front door slammed open, but Morgan didn’t even flinch as she dried her hands with a cloth. Nate walked into the small kitchen a few moments later, grabbing himself an apple from their fruit bowl. A small part of her wondered whether he missed the conveniently cheap junk foods they’d always had around the Avengers Tower like she did. She didn’t want to ask him about it though. It was a soft spot for both of them at the moment.

“I tinkered with the boiler, we should be able to have hot baths without an issue from now on,” she said instead. Apparently in this day and age showers were not yet a given in homes. That was what she really missed about home now. All she wanted was to spend 20 minutes soaking in the boiling shower of Avengers tower that had 10 different pressure settings.

She forced herself to stop there again. Both of them were homesick but dwelling wasn’t going to help. In 1920 Morgan Stark did not have the financial resources or access to materials that she’d need to put together a functional time machine. Or access to a location where she’d be able to build it in peace. Hell, she still didn’t even know how they’d ended up in this time in the first place. She could remember the two of them going through what appeared to be an abandoned Hydra base, but nothing else besides waking up on the streets of Birmingham over a century earlier.

Maybe she could renovate their sorry excuse of a bathroom and stick a homemade shower in? That was worth putting on her list of future projects. A hot shower would do both of them good.

“Thanks Morgan,” his voice was tired, he sounded like he was ready to sleep on his feet (which wouldn’t have surprised her given it was 10 in the morning and he’d only just gotten home), but he headed over to the room where he could have a bath and wipe the grime off himself.

Sighing, she brushed the dark brown hair away from her face. She actually needed to get moving, straight back to work and the drunk men that included. At least Harry was good company. Most of them also left her alone after the night earlier that week, apparently work had gotten around that she wasn’t afraid to throw a punch and she could throw a damn good one too.

* * *

Morgan had not thought about Tommy Shelby since the night in The Garrison where they’d spoken until her shift was over. In fact, he was so far out of her mind that she jumped when she walked out of the Garrison to empty a bucket and ran straight into the Gang leader in question.

“I’m so sorry, Mr Shelby,” she apologised quickly, trying to gage his reaction, as she put the bucket down, brushing brown curls back behind her ear so they would stop falling in her face. She already regretted not tying it back properly that morning, but without a hair tie or clips of any sort she knew she’d have to deal with it for the day. “Your horse is lovely… does he have a name?”

Morgan watched Tommy glance towards the horse, shaking his head. “He doesn’t have a name.”

She raised an eyebrow at the man in question, blue eyes shifting back to the white horse. It was a beautiful animal, but Morgan knew next to nothing about horses. She took a half step forward, bringing herself closer to the horse, and inadvertently also closer to Tommy. Her blue eyes quickly glanced back at the man in question, whose eyes seemed glued to her as if evaluating what she was doing. A slight tilt of her head to the side was enough to elicit a curt nod from him, and she slowly raised her hand to the horses nose in case she was meant to let it smell her first. Or was that just for dogs? Tommy’s expression certainly wasn’t telling her if she was doing the right thing or not but as it rested its chin on her hand she couldn’t help the way her lips twitched up into a smile as she allowed herself to run her hand down its face.

“Do you like horses?”

“They’re beautiful… don’t know much about them though…” and she didn’t trust them. While she didn’t say that to him, the horses suddenly took step forward causing her to take a step back and at that point she was fairly certain that he knew. Tommy Shelby on the other hand, clearly knew what he was doing. Not surprising really, she thought to herself. She’d heard the slurs thrown at him, the men who called him a tinker behind his back. Not that she’d known it was a slur for travellers when she first heard it, but she had heard that even in her time horses were still an important part of culture for travellers. In these times, with cars less common, she could only imagine how important they were on a day to day basis.

“How’d you fancy earning some extra money?” he’d asked her as he stepped around the horse, only looking down at her and seeing her confusion after he’d mounted the animal. It was done in such a graceful movement Morgan could only assume that he still frequently rode horses. She went to ask a question of her own about that but he cut her off. “Dig out a nice dress. I want to take you to the races.”

With that he rode off, leaving her even more confused about how that would relate to earning any extra money. Was he going to pay her for her company? And did that mean that he saw her as a prostitute? With how he’d just left did that mean she even had a say in whether or not she was going? Or was he just assuming that she would because he was in charge of this area. And would he try to force her to go if she wasn’t willing?

This had raised too many questions for her. Morgan sighed, shaking her head. She was going to go, even if just to figure out what he was playing at. He’d seen her break a man’s nose for trying to force himself on her, so she assumed Tommy wouldn’t do that at least.

Only thing left to do was to shoplift a nice, event appropriate dress.

Whatever that meant in this day and age.

A small groan left her lips. Maybe she could scout out a race track? Without F.R.I.D.A.Y to ask she made a mental note to befriend a woman from this era to ask for fashion advice.

* * *

A part of Morgan had expected to see Tommy Shelby in the bar that evening. That was the same part that was kind of looking forward to seeing him, though she wouldn’t admit it out loud to anyone, including herself. What she had not expected was the banging on the door after closing, while she was still cleaning the bar by herself. Harry had taken the night off, clearly trusting her to do her job in his absence. She thought about grabbing the gun in her bag for a brief moment before deciding she could handle whoever it was without a gun.

Tommy Shelby was the last person she expected to see there. It was pouring outside, and he looked like he was soaked through.

“You alright Mr Shelby?” she asked him softly. As he removed the hat from his head she noted that his hair was also drenched, plastered to his face. He brushed past here without anything more than a curt nod of his head.

“Would you get me a drink,” were the first words out of his mouth. It wasn’t a question or a request. Morgan wordlessly moved back behind the counter to pull out a bottle of whiskey that she knew was reserved for the man in front of her. He took the bottle without as much of a thank you, surprising her by taking two glasses as he wandered to a table. Taking the hint, she followed him back, sitting across from him at the table which is when he finally looked at her. “Where’s Harry?”

“He went to the pictures this evening,” she responded with a shrug, eyes running over him again trying to figure out exactly what was going on. She still wasn’t getting much off of him though, still frustratingly difficult to read. Upset or angry? Morgan couldn’t quite tell. She watched him as he took a gulp of whiskey and figured that he wasn’t going to keep the conversation flowing. Tilting her head to the side she finally brought herself to ask, “And what brings you here?”

“Wanted some company,” was the clipped response she received from him. Silence fell over both of them again, leaving Morgan to realise that despite their conversation the other day she knew little to nothing about him and didn’t really have a topic of conversation to start with. His gang wasn’t a particularly good place to start.

“How’s your horse?” she almost cringed as the words came out of her mouth, and the look on his face made her think that that was also not the best question. If anything, he looked even more upset, leaning his head back and taking a deep breath in. It seemed that his façade was crumbling in front of her, which was oddly comforting.

“I just put a bullet in his head,” he stated, piercing blue eyes seeming to look directly into her. She nodded slowly, trying to come up with the next words to say to the man in front of her.

“Why?”

“He looked at me the wrong way. It’s not a good idea to look at Tommy Shelby the wrong way,” the mask seemed to be going back up, the way that he was looking at her now making Morgan somewhat uncomfortable. She didn’t look away from his eyes though, and her lips tugging down into a concerned frown. With Nate hearing something like that might have sparked a sarcastic response. With other members of her team she would’ve used touch to try to comfort. With Tommy Shelby she somehow doubted sarcasm was the way to go, and but he had leaned back so the option of reaching out a hand of comfort seemed out. He downed another drink in front of her. She kept her mouth shut, eyes on him, waiting for him to continue. It only took a few more moments for him to keep going. “You know in France… I got used to seeing men die. Never got used to seeing horses die.”

“Whys that?” she asked, eyes still focussed on him but now he was the one who averted his eyes refusing to look at her. She could tell that he was getting pulled back into his memories of the war.

“They die badly,” was his response. It surprised her. She had seen her fair share of death in her lifetime as well and she thought everything died badly. Though, she had never seen a horse die and as such couldn’t begin to imagine what he even meant with that. He seemed to be done talking about it though as he picked up a pack of cigarettes, offering one to her. It was stupid, Morgan knew that as she reached out and took the offered cigarette. She knew the damage that they could do to a person but perhaps it was out of habit. Social smoking, that’s what she’d called it in modern days, especially when she had been a bit younger and partied a bit more often. A drink or a few more and she picked up a cigarette or did a line of coke like the people around her, usually ending with news headlines that left her mother screaming at her or evenings where Nate picked her up, sometimes literally picking her up and carrying her out, to get her drunk ass home to sleep it all off.

Maybe she went through that phase because it was around the time she became more aware her own father had his issues with partying, alcohol and drugs when he had been around that age. She barely had any memories of him that didn’t come from stories of others or video footage of the man.

‘I love you tons’ his voice echoed through her head, if it weren’t for the videos and holograms of him she wouldn’t be sure that was even what he sounded like. She shoved the thought back, trying to centre herself into the moment. The Garrison, Tommy Shelby, the cigarette she was holding in her hand.

“Thank you,” she said, grabbing the bottle of whiskey and pouring a bit into her own glass. Bottoms up, she thought to herself as she downed the drink, managing to choke back the grimace at the taste. She never liked whiskey. Brushing the stray brown curls away from her face, she brought the cigarette to her lips, watching as Tommy pulled out a box of matches. A part of her was glad he struck the match, holding it in her direction. She’d only ever used a lighter and was sure her struggles with a matchbox would make her look more airheaded than he probably already perceived her as being. Leaning towards him she let him light the cigarette for her, taking a few short breaths in to try to make it catch evenly before she leaned herself back to look at him again.

“So… the races you mentioned… what exactly is it that you want me to do?” she questioned, head tilted to the side again as she watched him light his own cigarette and take a drag.

“For two pounds you will do what I want you to do.” Morgan raised an eyebrow at him, leaning back into the chair and crossing her leg. It was a lot of money… running through a very rough calculation in her head that was the equivalent of about 120 pounds in her time.

“Two pounds and you won’t even tell me what I’m to do in advance?” the corners of his lips twitched up slightly, but it was gone as soon as she had spotted it. “You’ve either got to pay me more or let me in on what it is you want me to do.”

“Whys that?” he asked gruffly, causing a large smile to cross her face.

“A girl deserves to know what she’s getting into. Besides, can you imagine if I got blood on my favourite dress…”

She saw his lips twitch back upwards slightly, not enough to be a smile, but she’d take it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Sorry for the delay in posting this, things have been hectic with the whole current situation and working full time/studying full time from home for the last few months. I hope I've made it up with this longer chapter and thank you to everyone who has left a review, they've really helped to encourage me to continue writing. 
> 
> I was originally going to write this completely differently to diverge more from the TV show, but then I tried to disable iCloud and it deleted the chapter 3 draft I had. I ended up taking this route as it still made sense within the context of Morgan working at the Garrison. Grace does not exist in this story in case that hasn't been clarified before now. I think at the races things will diverge a lot more with Morgan/Tommy interactions as opposed to the Grace/Tommy interactions that occurred.


End file.
